Witch-Finder Read online

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  BooksForABuck

  www.BooksForABuck.com

  Copyright ©2008 by Knipe, Vanessa

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  CONTENTS

  Granny's Secret for Perfect Vegetables

  Rain Stopped Play

  The Camera Just Piles on the Pounds

  'From Ghasties, and Ghoulies, and Long-Leggit Beasties ... ‘

  Going for the Burn

  Dancing Through the Night with You

  Say it with Flowers

  Long Shadows in the Night

  Games People Play

  Night Watchman

  Ghost Sun

  Tricks of the Trade

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  WITCH-FINDER

  Vanessa Knipe

  A Chronicle of the Staff and Students of

  The Theological College

  of

  St. Van Helsing

  BooksForABuck.com

  2008

  WITCH-FINDER

  Vanessa Knipe

  A Chronicle of the Staff and Students of

  The Theological College of

  St. Van Helsing

  Copyright 2008 by Vanessa Knipe, all rights reserved. No portion of this novel may be duplicated, transmitted, or stored in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and locations are fictitious or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or people is coincidental.

  BooksForABuck.com

  November 2008

  ISBN: 978-1-60215-089-8

  Granny's Secret for Perfect Vegetables

  Rivalry was fierce amongst the villagers over this wretched vegetable competition, but sabotage was going too far. Pam peered at the man sprinting between the overgrown hedges. The only place the back lane led was her cousin's vegetable patch.

  Leaning on the chipped porcelain sink, she craned her neck to see.

  Halted by the gate, the man checked over his shoulder.

  She tried to duck behind the summer dust smearing her cousin's kitchen window, but the movement must have caught his eyes. He looked straight at her. With a sharp glance back up the lane, he brushed his fingers over his lips then made a throwing gesture at her. Another look around, then he vaulted the gate. Two huge dogs hurdled it after him.

  Pam's knuckles whitened around the handle of the sharp knife that she had been rinsing. Without thinking, she turned. The back door opened in her face. Cousin James strode into the kitchen, letting in what must have been the only breeze in the county; it sent the tea towels into a frantic dance. He gawked at the knife in her hand.

  'No, Pamela I don't need that. Thanks, but I've already chosen my exhibits.’ He displayed some tomatoes picked vine-and-all. ‘Don't these look like prize winners?'

  Pam slid the knife into the sink, feeling silly. What had she planned to do with it? James plucked a tomato and offered it to Pam. She popped it into her mouth then decided to ask him about the stranger. What came out was,

  'They're good. How do you get them to grow so well?'

  Pam blinked. What had made her say that? The fruit had a bitter aftertaste.

  'I used our Granny's special fertilizer. Didn't your mother tell you about it?'

  'Mother's not interested in growing things,’ Pam said. ‘She hires a gardener.'

  'You need to come and look at my greenhouse after the show.’ James checked his watch and dashed into the pantry. ‘Where's that bloody basket? I'm going to be late for the judging. I left it to the last minute to pick my tomatoes, so they'd be fresh.'

  'I'm going to walk down,’ she said.

  Grunts followed her by way of reply.

  She was going to find that man. Perhaps she could recognize him at the village fête. She trotted down the garden and into the back lane, taking the short cut to fête over steps, built into the dry-stone wall, leading to the churchyard. Once there, the gravel path crunched beneath Pam's trainers. After the oppressive heat of the lane, the shade under the yew trees chilled her.

  A growl sounded, low like distant thunder, from behind the nearest gravestone. A large hound sat on a neatly trimmed grave, sending shivers from Pam's ancestral memory of wolves.

  Was it one of the saboteur's dogs?

  It barred her path back to her cousin James's cottage. The growl started again as it stared at her. Pam stepped back, away from the beast, a step towards the solid safety of the church then another, keeping her eyes firmly on the dog. It stood and shook, rattling its chain collar. As Pam took another step back it paced forward, herding her.

  A rustle sounded from among the yew trees and the saboteur stepped out.

  'Shhh.’ His hand touched the head of the dog and it silenced. Behind him, prowled another wolfhound. Both dogs looked to him for further instruction.

  She turned on the glare, the one she used for importunate clients at the lawyer's office.

  Unfazed, he studied her as his dogs had. A beard shadowed his chin and his blue jeans were baggy at the knees with worn hems, but he looked too clean to be a tramp.

  From beyond the church, Pam heard the happy sounds of the village fête. Could she make it there before this man got her?

  More footsteps ground into the gravel path. Both dogs growled again.

  She braced for flight while they looked back along the path.

  'Pamela!’ Her cousin, James cradled his tomatoes in his arms—the basket must still be lost. ‘What did you run off like that for?'

  Seeing the dogs, he halted. It was nearly comical the way he tried to back away.

  'James,’ Pam said, intending to tell him about this man running down the back lane from his vegetable plot. She wanted to scream out, but her warning came out as a coughing fit. The stranger's hazel eyes glinted as they shifted away, as if he was shy, but Pam saw he was laughing at her.

  'You needn't worry about the boys,’ he said, a gravelly Scots burr in his voice. ‘They're softies really.'

  The iron gate to the Vicarage garden squeaked on its hinges behind her.

  'Dunkley, there you are.'

  The stranger looked up and nodded politely. Pam twisted round, relieved to see the Vicar. He pushed back a strand of his gray hair, which had fallen over his eyes, as he took in the small gathering.

  'Mr. Dunkley has agreed to help me judge our vegetables today, as the profits of our fête will be donated to the church roof fund. He's the foremost expert on gargoyles in the country.’ The Vicar waved at the badly weathered gargoyles that jutted from the time-battered roof of his church.

  The Vicar noticed James trying to slip away. ‘That's right, you should be down there already. Everyone else is set up.

  James edged past the dogs, white-eyed.

  'That's the last of our competitors rounded up. Shall we go, Dunkley?’ asked the Vicar.

  Accompanied by the Vicar, Dunkley strolled across the grass with the grace of a lion inspecting the herds. The wolfhounds gave Pam a last filthy look and trotted after him. Watching as he left, she saw his hair was drawn back into a snaky plait that fell to his waist.

  Pam frowned and
ran a fingertip over a gravestone so worn the inscription could no longer be made out. What had stopped her from telling James about the stranger who had turned out to be a fête judge? Still puzzling, she followed the men.

  Today, the Vicarage garden was thrown open, displaying borders overgrown with buddleia and fuchsia. On the neatly mown grass someone had laid shabby mattresses under a greasy pole set up between two trestles. There, the second of James's six kids was clobbering another child with a pillow.

  Pam found Marjory, her cousin's wife, in the refreshment tent, cuddling the youngest of the brood, barely two. She looked too pale in this heat.

  And no wonder, thought Pam, up and about so soon after her hysterectomy.

  'I've done the dishes,’ Pam said sitting with Marjory. ‘You don't look well. I'm not an expert but maybe you should go back to bed.'

  'What and leave you and my husband to get together?’ she hissed. ‘The pair of you with your Granny's magic recipe for growing tomatoes! I tried for years to obey his nonsense, and he repays me by turning away the moment I can't have any more children. Isn't six enough for him? Well, I'm not going to make it easy for you.'

  Pam's mouth dropped open. The female volunteers turned to stare at them instead of serving the endless cups of tea and homemade sandwiches and cakes needed to lubricate the smooth running of the village fête. Marjory pushed back her chair and stood, still glaring at her husband's cousin.

  'I'm going to find my children. It's time you thought about your own children, you home wrecker.’ Tears streamed down Marjory's face as she stormed off.

  'But...’ I don't know what you mean, Pam didn't get to say.

  Suddenly, no one was looking her way, everyone was discussing the gathering clouds. Would the rain hold off for the rest of the fête, was the question on everyone's lips.

  Pam fled.

  A few half-hearted drops of rain marked the tent canvas. Ducking under the entrance canopy to the Produce Marquee, she fanned her face—if only the cloud cover meant the heat would ease.

  Through the canvas walls she heard, ‘Are you sure?’ That sounded like the Vicar.

  'I tasted it in his tomatoes.’ There was no mistaking Dunkley with his Scots accent.

  'I was right, then.’ The Vicar sighed.

  'It's close to release, but that's my problem,’ said Dunkley. ‘That's why you called the office with your suspicions. He's not the only one.'

  'These country parishes still do things the old way. When I called the office, I had no idea to expect you, sir.'

  'Sometimes it's nice to be assigned a simple case.'

  Pam was still frowning as they left the tent. The competitors filed in to see the results, James among them, looking smug. Two minutes later, he emerged shredding his entry form. Looking around, he saw Pam and demanded,

  'Where's Marjory? I warned her.'

  'Looking for your kids. Why don't you help her for a change?’ Pam snapped.

  He glared at her for a moment, then stalked off.

  Pam stared after him.

  He brushed past Dunkley who was walking back towards the Produce Marquee.

  Dunkley glanced between James and another glum competitor who had followed James from the tent.

  Dunkley made his choice—he caught the other man. ‘I would like to discuss the various ways of cheating.'

  The man grimaced. ‘I didn't mean to cheat. I was just sick of James winning all the time. I spied on him in his shed...'

  Pam wanted, no, needed to know what was going on here. The answer had to be in James's garden. She ran to the iron gate and back into the churchyard.

  A breeze finally brought relief from the stifling heat, but wafted the stench of decaying leaves to her wrinkling nose.

  She jumped as the lowest branches of the yew trees, which over hung the path, stroked her hair. The breeze carried a giggle up from the village fête—after all a breeze could not giggle itself. The sound, and the breeze blew away, leaving Pam alone with the hazy clouds darkening into thunder. Without that breeze there was no relief from air too heavy to breathe.

  She strode along the back lane, determined to discover the source of the madness.

  James's vegetable patch was away from the house. The main garden had bare grass, with a swing and a slide for the children. An orchard of five trees shielded the straight lines of produce from ball games.

  It was set out as a potager, in square beds with grass paths between them. Strings with fluttering foil bird scares were stretched across winter vegetable seedlings. His shed and greenhouse stood in the center squares of the plot and a compost heap was set against the back fence.

  From the relative poverty of the household furnishings, she had expected his outhouses to be cobbled together from old scrap, but this garden was where the money was spent. The prized, but not prize-winning, tomato plants grew like soldiers under pristine glass.

  Wind scuttled through the bird scares. For a moment, it blew from snow-topped mountains. Then the stifling heat returned, as if the clouds were the lid on a box with no air holes.

  Pam looked around for something strange, anything to explain the craziness and saw a rain front chasing her.

  She ducked inside the shed as rain spotted her thin, cotton shirt.

  The inside was as neatly kept as the garden outside, except for the strange pictograms, like Egyptian writing, chalked on the interior wall.

  A circle had been gouged into the dirt floor. The focus of the drawings was a shelf in the back corner, where James had stood a statue of an old woman.

  Pam stared at the statue, trying to remember if there was a patron saint of gardening.

  The shed door slammed, clattering the tools that hung on nails. Pam glanced back, expecting that the mischievous breeze had blown it closed, but James stood there, blocking the exit.

  'My spirit told me you had come up here.’ He eyed her tight-fitting jeans.

  That breeze that followed James everywhere was now trapped in the shed with them; despite well-fitting windows, it was drafty.

  The breeze whispered, ‘Here. Now.'

  'Yes,’ he said. ‘We'll do the ritual here.'

  From the way he guarded the door she expected him to make a pass but didn't mean to give him a chance.

  'What ritual?’ She tried to elbow him aside. ‘Get out of the way.'

  'You'll get wet.’ He barred her retreat. ‘Our Granny was a witch, you know.'

  'Don't be silly.'

  'Her familiar spirit needs a fertility ritual.’ He spoke as if she had said nothing. ‘To keep my garden in prime condition, it demands a placenta on the compost heap.'

  Right, she thought, desperately checking to see if the windows opened. They were screwed shut. Step one: humor mad cousin. Step two: move him aside.

  She forced a smile. ‘I thought a fertility ritual would require a virgin.'

  The mad breeze urged, ‘Kiss her, kiss him.'

  'Virgins! What nonsense! It needs a proven mother, like you.'

  'I have a partner.’ Her voice sounded squeaky. ‘I'm happy with him. I don't do unfaithful.'

  'I wouldn't need to do this if Marjory could have more children.’ He grabbed for her.

  'You're mad,’ Pam screamed and tried to side-step him. Her hip banged into the potting table, slowing her.

  James caught her in a bear hug, plastering his lips to hers.

  She turned her face away so he got her ear, her cheek, but not her lips, but that didn't help much. His kisses burned her face like poison.

  Pressing her against the table, James got his free hand onto the zip of her jeans. Her fist hammered against his shoulder; her other hand groped for a weapon as he pushed the waistband of her trousers over her hips.

  A trowel touched her fingertips. Clutching it, she stabbed her cousin's arm.

  He released her with a howl, his eyes promising repayment for the pain.

  She yanked a spade from the wall.

  Seeing her intention, he raised an arm to ward off
the head blow. The force still slammed him to the floor.

  Dropping the spade, she scrambled for the door. All the while the breeze whistled around her ears, making her head swim. She was sure it tried to hold her in the shed.

  'No go,’ sang the breeze.

  One foot, then the next, she forced her way through the door.

  The breeze strengthened but she made it.

  Her jeans half-down, she flopped onto the grass path between vegetable beds. She thought of her partner and children, her house, the cold rain soaking through her thin summer clothes, anything to cover this singing in her ears.

  Wind can't tell me what to do, Pam thought.

  Reaching out, she clutched the nearest object, a clod of freshly dug earth. She flung it at the wind. Most of the mud flew through the wailing wind-thing, but some struck it. The wind became more solid, forcing it to take a hag shape.

  What? Oh yes, air and earth were opposing elements.

  She grabbed another clod and lobbed it at the air. More earth stuck to the creature. She scooped together a double handful and chucked it. The wind creature desperately fought against sinking towards the ground.

  Applause sounded from the fence.

  Dunkley was leaning on the barrier. ‘I tried to get rid of it earlier, that's when you saw me. But he keeps it with him.'

  Pam scrambled to her feet, hitching up her trousers as he opened the gate and strolled in, followed by his snuffling dogs.

  They nosed at the ground and gruffed at the compost heap.

  Thunk! James flung back his shed door and staggered into the garden. Blood from the spade-wound dripped down his ear into his cupped hands.

  The sagging wind creature drifted to James. ‘Master, give me blood for strength. I'm so weak.'

  Noticing Dunkley, James screamed, ‘Stay away from here!'

  The wolfhounds growled, they paced over and sat between Dunkley and James.

  James backed away from their white teeth.

  'I'll do my job, then leave,’ Dunkley said.

  Pam stared as Dunkley advanced on the wind creature.

  'Master, he'll kill me,’ whispered the breeze. ‘Blood, please master.'